Homily 15th Sunday Ordinary Time Year B - Summoned and Sent

Homily (Sermon) – Summoned and Sent

The Readings for Sunday 15th July 2012  or the 15th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year B:
First Amos 7:12-15
Psalm Psalm 84
New Ephesians 1:3-14
Gospel Mark 6:7-13
[These readings can be found at www.universalis.com for the next few weeks.] 

At the end of this Mass you will be sent into the world. You will be sent to announce the Gospel of the Lord, to glorify the Lord. As followers of Christ we come to this church to worship Him, to love Him, to receive Him into our lives. We listen and learn from His teaching in scripture, we fuel our bodies and souls from the Eucharist. We prepare ourself to do His work, to live our Christian lives. Then we are sent into the world as the twelve are summoned and sent in today's Gospel.

How prepared do you feel, right now, to go.

You should go in pairs, so you can support each other, protect each other, one working one praying. You should take very little, the clothes your wearing are fine, you don't need any more. Don't take money, leave your credit cards behind, you will be provided for, and if you are not then leave, move on. Tell people to correct their ways, fight evil when you find it, cure the sick. Are you ready to do this?

Think how the disciples felt, they had come to Christ to learn, and now after only a few months with Him, they are about to leave him for a short time to do the work He has been doing, they are being sent out by Christ with His authority. Fear and terror mixed with Christ's peace and grace. Divine gifts and human weaknesses.

We are told in only one small sentence about their successes, they cast out many devils and anointed and cured many. We can only assume we are missing out on many stories similar to those we hear of throughout the Gospels, Acts and the letters of the New testament.

It's difficult to compare ourselves to these men. To the men who walked with Christ, ate with Christ, who were chosen by Christ to build his Church and teach his message. But that is us! We are called to walk with Christ, to eat with Christ and to teach his message. As Paul tells the Ephesians and as Paul tells us today, each one of us, every one of us, have been chosen by God.

He choose you! He choose you to be set apart from the world but still very much in it. He choose you to be spotless, not through your actions but through his forgiveness. He choose you, to be His daughter or His Son. He choose you to live with Him in love.

You are part of Gods plan, you are to play a part in his Glory. You have heard the message of Christ, a message of love, repentance and redemption.  To believe in this message, is to accept Gods choice, to realise that you are special in the eyes of God, that you have been called to serve.

Our world is in need of our teaching, our love, our service. There are many out there who don't understand our Church, who have never heard in their hearts the call of Christ. There are many out there who are in need of healing, body and soul. There are many out there who need feeding, who need to be cared for, who need to be loved. Christ has built an eternal Church, towering throughout the ages, blazing with the lives of the saints, to continue His Work and His mission. Each generation passing His Church to the next. Today, you are that Church, how are you going to serve? What is Jesus asking you to do?

I am not asking you to walk from town to town preaching on street corners, unless you believe that's your calling. I am asking that you consider what your calling is, what Jesus is asking you to do. Being part of Christ's Church is about all of your life, everything you do, everything you say. He has summoned you, He is sending you, what is he asking you to do?

As we hear in the Psalm, “The Lord will make us prosper and our earth shall yield its fruit. Justice shall march before Him and peace shall follow in his steps.” Is it time to ask ourselves and ask our Lord in prayer, where will following those steps of peace lead us? Where should we march?

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About the Author - Deacon John Scanlon
Please click here for an Index of all my homilies and notes.

Ecumenical Sunday - Potterswood Methodist Church

Today was a real privilege for me. I want to thank the parish of Potterswood for allowing me to preach at and lead their service. I had a wonderful time,Thank You.

Below is the typed version of the homily. I went off script often so while this is roughly the homily given it's not exact by a long way.

Deuteronomy 18:15-20 

Psalm 95

1 Corinthians 7:32-35

Mark 1:21-28  

It is a real privilege to be invited here today to preach. I think it's a wonderful thing our communities are doing, swapping preachers, swapping ideas, sharing our worship. I am sure God would be proud of us all. Although, I have to admit I am more than a little intimidated about today, I don't want to let you down or disappoint anyone. I have been well guided by Neil & Elly in what normally happens here and I have tried to roughly follow that. However, I have also taken several elements from the Roman Catholic services that are happening across the world today. The opening blessing and the readings are taken from the Roman Missal and every church will hear those same readings. The prayer I used in the children’s blessing is a famous one from Mother Teresa of Calcutta. The prayers of intercession that we will say in a few minutes are based on the ones prayed last night at the first Mass I attended this Sunday. The Hymns we have sung are Hymns I sing regularly and love.

I hope nothing we have done this morning or will do this morning is new to you. It's Christian worship, catholic worship in it's true meaning of universal, all encompassing, every church, every Christian.

In some ways all our journeys began with the story told in today’s Gospel. These events that Mark described are right at the start of his Gospel. In the few verses that preceded what we heard today, we were told about John the Baptist, the Baptism of Jesus and Jesus calling his disciples. Today we see the start of Jesus' ministry. We are told of his first teaching and his first healing.

It starts with a simple line, “When the Sabbath came, Jesus went to the Synagogue and began to teach.” But His teaching was different and to understand why Jesus' teaching was different we need to understand a little about what normally happened in a synagogue.

Synagogues were established to teach. Every Jewish settlement would have had a synagogue, in fact the law said where you had ten Jewish families you must have a synagogue. But synagogues were not run by a permanent preacher, vicar or priest. There were roles in the synagogue, there were the distributers of alms who took up collections for the poor, the Chazzan who looked after the scroll and there was a ruler who performed the administration and opened the service and invited people to preach. These people could and would be anyone from the community but often these teachers would be scribes. Scribes were important people, they studied the Torah, the first five books of our old Testament. The Torah contained everything, every instruction needed to live according to Gods will. The scribes over generation had built the rules of the Jewish people on the Torah, the Law. They taught from tradition, quoted other scribes and rules. They were good men I am sure but legalistic and it was from their knowledge of tradition and law that they taught.

Christ was different. Christ taught with Authority, his authority. He didn't site rules and precedents. He spoke from the heart, the same heart that had given Moses the Law centuries before. Christ with words alone was amazing people. He was telling them what they needed to hear in a way no man had done before.

To add to this amazement they witness the exchange between Christ and a man possessed by an evil spirit. The spirit, through the man, start heckling, and Jesus sternly commands the spirit “Be Quiet. Come out of him.” and the spirit does so immediately.

There is some archaeological evidence that suggests the cure for possession by an evil spirit or demon was to have a small hole drilled into the top of your head to let the spirit out, a technique called trepanning. The bone removed was then worn as a necklace. In one excavated cemetery of around 2000 years ago 6 out of 120 bodies were found with trepanned holes in the skulls.

Christ's command, a simple phrase, compared to this surgical procedure again shocked and amazed the people. So what we read today describes how our church started. The first Christian preaching, the first Christian healing. Jesus was a man who could preach something new and preach it with Authority. He was a man who could command demons. He was a man to be talked about because no understood who or what he was.

It's sad that 2000 years on many in our world still don't understand who Christ is. But there is also great hope, sure and certain hope, because many in our world do know Christ. We are here today because we know or want to know Christ. And we are challenged by today's gospel to carry on Christ's teaching, and to carry it on with his authority.

When you trust in him, he will give you the words. When you live with him he will guide your actions. The lives you live and the conversations you have will influence those around you.

We spoke to the Children a few minutes ago about starting things with prayer, about inviting God in to there lives. To share the fun, the important and even the normal everyday things like meals. I challenge you to do the same in everything you do. Invite God to be a part of it. Allow him to express his authority in this world through you.

Let take a couple of minutes silent reflection now, and maybe use the time to consider what we will do this week and how we will share it with God.